Rebecca Black, 13, is embracing her fame as a YouTube viral video star -- even though a lot of the reason for that fame is the ridicule people have heaped on her song. She may end up laughing all the way to even more fame. ABC, MTV and Ryan Seacrest are among the high-profile media suitors clamoring to get her on their programs. Rebecca and her family gave their first-ever interview this week to the Orange County Register. PHOTO BY PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTERTEXT BY PETER LARSEN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

In her wildest dreams – or her worst nightmares, for that matter – Rebecca Black never imagined that any of this would happen:

That the music video for "Friday," her first and only single, would skyrocket from 4,000 views on YouTube to more than 13 million in less than a week.

That this 13-year-old school girl from Anaheim Hills would be accused by thousands of anonymous, cruel and sometimes quite nasty critics for creating the allegedly worst song and music video in the history of pop music.

That her name would become so well-known that "Rebecca Black" would become a trending topic on Twitter for days, overtaking matters both ridiculously frivolous (Charlie Sheen's rants) and desperately serious (the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.)

"I have been so mind-blown with the whole thing," Rebecca says in her first interview since "Friday" exploded into the pop culture zeitgeist and thrust her onto a virtual worldwide stage.

A week ago, Rebecca was just a kid like any other. An honor student at her middle school in northeast Orange County. A girl who loved to sing wherever she went. The star of a song and video that she never really expected more than a handful of people to see.

"I didn't really expect much to come out of it," Rebecca says of "Friday," the song and video she made through Ark Music Factory, a Los Angeles-based group, with some of the production costs paid by her family. "Just maybe some friends and some family would see it."

And when over the first month after its release on YouTube it reached 1,000 views? "I felt like it was so many people. I don't even know a thousand people. I thought this is so crazy!"

But the craziness had not even started, as Rebecca and her family soon would learn.

* * *

Like many little girls, Rebecca wanted to be a ballerina when she grew up, taking classes from the age of 2, and eventually adding tap and jazz to her studies. But in 2008, she joined a patriotic singing group called Celebration USA, performing at venues from Angel Stadium, were they sang the national anthem, to senior living homes and civic events.

"It was something new, and all of a sudden I wanted to do singing more," she says. "I'd always been singing in the shower. Now I would sing everywhere."

Like most elementary school kids, she liked the pop acts that appealed to tweens: Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, and, of course, Justin Bieber, a life-sized cutout of whom she keeps in her bedroom. "I've always wanted to be like Justin Bieber," she says.

And for the next few years, she did all the things that kids who want to sing and perform do. She auditioned for her school talent shows and musicals – just two weeks ago she starred as Laurey in a middle-school production of "Oklahoma!" – and spent several summers at the Best of Broadway summer camp at the Orange County High School of the Arts.

Last fall, Rebecca heard about Ark from a friend who'd done a music video with them and thought it sounded fun.

"I was sitting on my mom's bed with my laptop and I said, 'Hey, check this out!'" she says of the moment she and her mother, Dr. Georgina Kelly (a veterinarian as is her father, Dr. John Black), first stumbled onto the production company's website.

Soon after, Rebecca went to the Ark studios to sing a few songs for producers Patrice Wilson and Clarence Jey, sort of an audition, she says.

"And we went down to the studio and they liked my voice," she says. "They said I looked a little like Selena Gomez" – which she does – "and asked me if I liked Taylor Swift."

They sent her one song, which she liked, and then they sent her "Friday," which she liked more. "The other one was like being superwoman for a guy, and being 13, I haven't really experienced anything like that," Rebecca says.

Rebecca Black, 13, is embracing her fame as a YouTube viral video star -- even though a lot of the reason for that fame is the ridicule people have heaped on her song. She may end up laughing all the way to even more fame. ABC, MTV and Ryan Seacrest are among the high-profile media suitors clamoring to get her on their programs. Rebecca and her family gave their first-ever interview this week to the Orange County Register. PHOTO BY PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTERTEXT BY PETER LARSEN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Thirteen-year-old Rebecca Black never expected her music video for "Friday" to do much more than serve as a calling card to the record business. But after a comedian blogged about how bad it was a week ago, it went viral on YouTube and as of late this had more than 13 million views. PHOTO BY PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTERTEXT BY PETER LARSEN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Rebecca Black''s initial response to her music video for "Friday" going viral was that the whole world seemed to hate her, and it's true that articles were published around the world calling the song the worst song ever created. However, after crying for an hour at home, she decided to embrace the old adage: There's no such thing as bad publicity. PHOTO BY PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTERTEXT BY PETER LARSEN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Rebecca Black's music video was shot in Orange County, using her father's home as a set and her parents, little brother Chase, and many of her friends as actors in it. She's seen here in a still from the video, which has turned into one of the biggest viral hits on YouTube this year. PHOTO BY PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTERTEXT BY PETER LARSEN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Rebecca Black is weighing her options for the future now that her song and video for "Friday" have turned into viral hits. For most of the past week she's been one of the top trending topics on Twitter, a measure of the heat she's had in the pop culture landscape since her YouTube clip took off. And despite a lot of mean comments, she's maintaining a cheeful outlook on everything that's happening. PHOTO BY PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTERTEXT BY PETER LARSEN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
What gets lost in all the Internet snarkiness over Rebecca Black and her video for "Friday" -- a song thousands and thousands have ripped as the worst song ever -- is that all those cruel comments are directed a real kid with feelings that can be hurt. So it's no surprise to hear Rebecca describe the tears that came at first. And it's nice to hear how resilient she's been in the face of all that. PHOTO BY PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTERTEXT BY PETER LARSEN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Rebecca Black, a 13-year-old from Orange County, is the biggest Internet celebrity of the past week -- bigger than Charlie Sheen, bigger than the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, bigger than uprisings in the Middle East. It's all a little hard to comprehend, she says of the furor over a simple pop song she recorded just to have the experience of making a song and video. PHOTO BY PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTERTEXT BY PETER LARSEN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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